Move over Amazon: Shanda Literature, a unit of Shanda Interactive Entertainment, is entering the fast-growing world of electronic books with the launch of its new Bambook.
Shanda Literature's chief executive, Hou Xiaoqiang, said Shanda started researching e-books 18 months ago before coming up with the Bambook, which comes with Wi-fi and 3G.
The Bambook has a six-inch screen and allows users access to the company's newly launched Yunzhong library, which has three million books and more than 1,000 journals and claims to be the country's biggest digital library.
Wang Jing, a spokeswoman for Shanda Literature, said 90 per cent of the library would be free of charge, but the group had not yet finalised how to charge e-readers.
'In the first phase, we will charge for the second half of a book, while the first half is free,' she said, adding that Shanda would also experiment with charging by chapter.
Currently the main player in the mainland's e-book market is Hanvon Technology, with as much as 90 per cent of the market, with the rest spread out among far smaller companies. Hanvon sold about 270,000 e-book readers in 2009 and expects to sell two million in 2010.
Shanda's move is expected to intensify competition, and Hanvon shares dropped 2.92 per cent to close at 101.88 yuan (HK$116.58) yesterday.